Cellcom, Israel’s biggest mobile phone company, is coming under fire for a new commercial which shows Israeli soldiers having fun kicking a soccer ball with unseen Palestinians on the other side of the contested wall that separates Israel and the West Bank. Knesset member Ahmed Tibi has called the ad racist and asked the company to stop running it. “The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics. Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv,” he wrote in a letter of protest. And Saeb Erekat, an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said it’s “despicable to use the suffering and occupation as a means of advertisement.”

Cellcom, Israel’s biggest mobile phone company, is coming under fire for a new commercial which shows Israeli soldiers having fun kicking a soccer ball with unseen Palestinians on the other side of the contested wall that separates Israel and the West Bank. Knesset member Ahmed Tibi has called the ad racist and asked the company to stop running it. “The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics. Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv,” he wrote in a letter of protest. And Saeb Erekat, an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said it’s “despicable to use the suffering and occupation as a means of advertisement.”